


Innocence

by Toricchi



Category: Dragon Knights
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-08
Updated: 2010-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toricchi/pseuds/Toricchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In hindsight, that was probably when he had begun to lose him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Innocence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [duzie_ou](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=duzie_ou).



> Written sometime early-mid 2007 and since thoroughly jossed by the Lykouleon/Raseleane gaiden. Thanks to DB for beta.

Lykouleon was an only child. He'd always imagined that he'd have a large family when he grew up, as far away as that concept had seemed at twenty-five. He remembered too well wandering the corridors alone (but never truly alone, for security dogged his every step); playing with his nurses; waiting for his parents to come see him. Always waiting. His parents were very busy people, Nurse had explained patiently, and as he'd grown older and had to learn how to manage the affairs of an entire nation himself he'd begun to understand, but still, his fancy nursery (only the best for a young prince) had always seemed so cold and lonely despite its toys and cheery decorations.

When his parents had taken in Ruwalk, the orphaned son of the Duke of Chantel and a distant cousin, he'd been so glad to have someone to play with that he wouldn't have cared_ what_ Ruwalk was like. But Ruwalk was friendly and likeable, despite having lost both his parents at such a young age, and he knew lots of fun games. They'd become fast friends immediately.

He'd sworn that his children wouldn't grow up the way he had. His father had put his work before his family, and as a result the castle had its shield and the land unprecedented peace, but he'd been a stranger to him. He'd vowed that he was going to be involved with his children's lives. Play games. Bake cookies. Go to violin recitals. They were going to be the large, happy family he'd never had. They'd have each other, and him. They'd never have to be lonely.

Meeting Raseleane was like another piece of the puzzle clicking into place. He hadn't expected to fall in love, but he had, almost at first sight, with her sweet smile and warm personality. They were married as soon as she came of age, and all of Dusis had turned out for the wedding. When the minister pronounced them husband and wife, he'd been so happy he'd thought his heart must burst out of his chest, it couldn't be contained inside him.

His own mother had been the utmost professional, cool and standoffish, devoted to the running of her castle. Towards the end of his mother's life his parents had been living essentially separate lives. He couldn't live like that: treating each other as colleagues during the day, and going back to empty, separate beds at night. Raseleane ran the castle with a steady hand and a gentle word, and everybody loved her for it.

It was his dream coming true, like someone had read it right out of his head, and when he lay with her after they had made love for the first time, he wondered that it could be happening at all. Everything was so perfect, like something out of a fairytale. How could it last?

It didn't. Nadil's defection shouldn't have taken him by surprise—Nadil had always been surly and aggressive and many people had expressed reservations about his appointment, but Dragon Knights only came along once a generation so there had been little choice- but he'd been so wrapped up in his fantasy life that he hadn't seen what should have been obvious, hadn't acted in time to save them. He'd felt Hayate's wound with a pang in his heart, like a piece of it had simply been ripped away, and the mournful song of the dragons at the loss of their own had forced him to his knees. That had been a moment so terrible he could barely survive it, but it wasn't until precious hours later that he'd discovered that when Nadil had disappeared to his new fort, he'd taken Raseleane with him.

Insensible with anger and grief, he'd wanted to go after her immediately. It had taken both Alfeegi and Ruwalk to physically hold him back so he couldn't leave until they'd talked some sense into him, although he hadn't been coolheaded enough to see that at the time; it had felt like they were leaving Raseleane to die. It would have been a suicide mission, of course, and he'd known that; maybe it had even been what he wanted. What use was he, what kind of man was he, if he couldn't even protect the person most precious to him? What kind of knight in shining armour was he now, as Cernozura tipped brandy down his numb throat and his Dragon Officers discussed plans for infiltrating Nadil's stronghold, a fortress they only had scraps of information about?

What had frightened him the most was the rage that had built up inside him, seething through his veins and making his blood boil. The desire for vengeance, for flesh and blood, had startled him. He'd wanted to hurt Nadil, tear him from limb to limb and throw the remains to the dogs, then piece him back to together so he could start again, and it would still not be remonstration enough. And yet, perhaps he felt anger because the only other option was to weep. He had _Raseleane_, his heart and soul. If anything happened to her, he wouldn't be able to live with himself. He'd sworn a vow to protect her. If she died, so would he.

"Don't let him get to you," Ruwalk had said quietly in his ear. "He wants you to be angry. Don't let him make you like him."

Ruwalk's kindness had made it possible to slip out of the castle, armed with all the intelligence they had been able to put together. He would find Raseleane and bring her back safely, or die in the process. If he didn't have her, his life would no longer be worth living, although no one seemed to understand. He _had_ to get her back, no matter the risk to himself.

He didn't remember the battle well; in fact, as the years went on entire stretches of it seemed to seep from him with his blood, Nadil's curse worming its way into another of his vital systems. A few things lingered. The biting cold. Illuser's soft fur as he held him. The warm, sticky spray of Nadil's blood bathing him.

The warmth and softness of Raseleane when he held her again, the faint, spicy smell of her hair as he tucked her under his chin and promised he'd never let her go again. The unexpected wetness of tears running down his cheeks; Raseleane kissing them away.

Nadil's death had lifted his enchantment and set her mind free. She knew him. But his other spell lay coiled inside her where his love couldn't reach, an insidious snake. She could never bear his children now.

Some called for him to divorce her. She had lost the Dragon Eyes, the mark of a Dragon Empress—although through no fault of her own, but the dissenters didn't seem to care about that- and she could not give him a heir; what good was she then for Draqueen, they argued. His ministers made many convincing rebuttals on his behalf: Nadil's enchantment might still be lifted; there was no certainty another girl bearing Dragon Eyes would be born during Lykouleon's lifetime... they fell deaf on his ears. All he could think of was that he loved her. Why wasn't that enough?

He did love her, enough that he almost didn't notice his dreams going up in a puff of smoke. He was too busy nursing her back to health and trying to ensure the security of his state from this new threat that he didn't have _time_ to think about anything else. He spent many hours holding her hand as she languished in bed, regaining her strength little by little, until one day he noticed she was crying.

"What's the matter, Raseleane? Is something wrong? Are you in pain?" he'd asked worriedly, gripping her hand white-knuckled.

"I'm sorry, Lykouleon," she'd sobbed. "I can't give you a child now."

"Do you think that matters to me? All I care about is that you're safe now," he'd said, collecting her into his arms as if he could soothe the frantic beat of her heart that way, and take back the horrible things Nadil had done to her, until peaceful sleep had claimed her. He'd brushed the hair back off her hair and marvelled that such a strong, amazing woman had ever come to him.

But it did become a problem. He kept a brave face on in her quarters for her sake, but his beautiful wife had a sharp mind and easily deciphered the rumours flying around the castle. He, and Ruwalk, Alfeegi, Kai-stern, Tetheus and Cernozura tried to shield her from as much as they could, but once she was well enough to leave her room and return to her duties, there was no escaping the barrage and he knew it must be wearing her down.

What could they do? He couldn't leave her, but was his kingdom to die with him? His bloodline had ruled this country proudly for thousands of years; the nagging voice in the back of his head, although it sickened him, would not allow him to throw that away so easily. He passed many sleepless nights, tossing and turning. The librarians were working around the clock, digging through every book ever published for the cure to Raseleane's condition, and Kai-stern was undercover gathering intelligence on Nadil's newborn army and reported back to him regularly.

It wasn't enough. Raseleane's face fell further by the day. She began to withdraw into herself. He was losing her, he knew, but he couldn't see how to stop it.

"Raseleane?" he called tentatively when he came to check on her one day. Her bedchamber was as dark as a cave and he could barely make out her figure, crouched in a ball on the bed. "Raseleane? What's wrong?"

"They're right," she said with a trembling voice, not looking up at him, "You should leave me. I'm useless to you now. You can easily find someone else who can give you what you need... what you deserve."

"_You're_ what I need," he said helplessly, sinking into her tangle of sheets. Why was life so unfair? They'd had everything just for a handful of precious moments, too brief yet beautiful before Nadil (how his blood still rose at the name) had cruelly snatched it away. His hope was falling through his hands like sand, no matter how hard he tried to cling onto it. He held Raseleane as close to him as he could, willing her to stay with him with every fibre of his being. He _needed_ her. He'd be nothing without her. They could be a family, just the two of them, as long as _she did not leave him_. "I can't do this without you," he whispered, and realised he was crying.

"Lykouleon..." she whispered, leaning against him like that one word had sapped the last of her energy.

Their situation grew more desperate. He would have to do something, sooner rather than later. The populace was demanding a heir, and baying for his blood. They were calling for him to either leave Raseleane or forfeit the throne; he was too sentimental; the woman had bewitched him; he was clouded by love, letting his heart guide him instead of his head and obscuring his better judgement. He was no longer fit to rule, his rivals claimed, _look at what had happened_. His tenuous hold on his people slipped a little further every day.

Then a miracle, and a catastrophe, struck. A demon had been ravaging the land, and they were forced to confront it before it hurt anyone else. Ruwalk was badly injured defending him and almost died. He hadn't really known what had inspired him to do what he did, but the next thing he knew he was holding a small boy.

They never became truly close -Lykouleon would never forget the look in Ruwalk's eyes when he first limped out of the infirmary and saw Raseleane cradling Rath in her lap, although Ruwalk managed to camouflage it quickly, and he never knew what had driven him to give him the name "Illuser"- and he regretted the wedge driven now between the two men he loved the most.

But even when he feared for Ruwalk's life, and wondered how he would forgive himself if he died, how he could ever look at Rath's face again... he couldn't stop his heart from _singing_.

Rath, his _son_, made of his own blood. After so many years, he had a child, and the populace had their heir. He could see the tension slowly slipping away from Raseleane's face when she was in the nursery she'd given up on, rocking Rath in his cradle or reading him stories. He was so small, almost doll-like, a little bit of a thing with some dark fluff for hair, gurgling happily as Raseleane rocked the cradle. He looked just like any other baby from the castle nursery. Raseleane smiled as he tried to grab her finger with his small, chubby hands, and at that moment, with his beautiful wife leaning into the cradle against the backdrop of the perfect, untouched nursery furniture, he wished desperately for her sake and his own, more than anything else, that Rath could have been a normal child.  
Neither of them could stop touching him, as if fate might snatch him away as quickly as it had given him to them.

Rath grew almost supernaturally quickly, but other than that he seemed perfectly normal. His nurses all pronounced him to be in the finest of health, much to his relief: he'd been worried that the transition from body to body might have injured him inside, left him hanging in limbo. Soon he was walking, or more often falling, taking his first clumsy steps with Crewgar as his patient guide and handhold. He started speaking soon after. His first word was _mama_. Raseleane's smile was like the sun breaking through a dark cloud, a glimpse of the woman he'd first fallen in love with. Later, he'd held her when the tears came.

Rath liked sweets, especially chocolate. He played so much with the teddy bear Cernozura had given them at the christening that it started to disintegrate, and Lykouleon had had to sew its ear back on with his own rusty needlework before Rath started to cry. He couldn't stand to see him cry, if only because in his screams he always heard a note of the demon. Perhaps he couldn't be blamed if he found himself forgetting sometime that Rath was not his birthed child.

Everyone at the castle smiled when he came round, because finally, they were at peace and the royal family was happy, the final piece of the puzzle slid into place.

It was when Kai-stern came back from his latest mission six months later that things changed. For some reason, Rath latched on to Kai-stern and refused to let go. Whenever he was in the nursery, he wanted to go out with Kai-stern; he preferred playing with Kai-stern than to playing with Raseleane or Lykouleon, and generally got under Kai-stern's feet and made a nuisance of himself knocking over his ink and tearing up his parchments. Kai-stern didn't seem to care, however, and only laughed and ruffled Rath's hair when Alfeegi scolded him for interrupting their meetings. He got quiet and moody when Kai-stern was away on missions, and only really seemed to cheer up when Kai-stern returned with Crewgar.

In hindsight, that was probably when he had begun to lose him. Whether it was because Rath subconsciously sensed they were both _different_ somehow (Lykouleon had not told Rath the truth of his birth, and wondered sometimes whether it would be wise to at all), but they attracted each other like magnets and soon wherever one went, the other was bound to be; Crewgar dogging Rath's steps as faithfully as Rath followed Kai-stern's.

But still, Rath smiled and laughed and hugged Raseleane, and if there were days when he seemed moody or depressed, then all children had them, and he was too happy to finally have his own family to wonder if there was anything deeper lurking beneath the surface.

"You should tell him," Kai-stern said quietly one day as they sat watching Crewgar trying to determine whether Rath's marbles were edible.

"Is it really for the best?" he replied wistfully to a chorus of barks in the background as Crewgar decided to take Rath for a ride.

"He'll work it out eventually in the end. I think he already suspects something, to be honest."

As a matter of fact, he thought so, too: Rath had already referred to himself as "strange" or "weird" several times before despite Raseleane's gentle reprimands, and although he delighted in overturning Alfeegi's inkpot or trying to steal Tetheus's sword, he innately gave Ruwalk a wide berth (for his part, Ruwalk's smile still faltered at times when Rath came around, although Rath's charms were beginning to work their ways on him as well), as if he knew in some dark, secret corner of his mind what he had been.

How could he tell a child that? That he had been a monster, that he had nearly killed Ruwalk? Of course, he hadn't been "Rath" then, but would he understand that? He was still so young; wouldn't it be better to wait until he was old enough to understand that it hadn't been his fault, that no one blamed him and that everybody loved him?

"He's got a right to know, Lykouleon," Kai-stern said as they watched Crewgar and Rath playing together. "Imagine how confused he is at the moment; he knows he's different from the other kids but he doesn't know how or why."

"I know," he sighed. "I just don't think I can tell him." _Ever_. Some small part of him was afraid that the knowledge would rip apart the precious family he'd finally managed to build, that Rath would hate him for doing what he'd done to him and for not telling him sooner, and another part of him hated himself for thinking that way. Kai-stern's sharp gaze cut right through him to the heart of it all.

"If you don't tell him, I will," Kai-stern warned, picking up his bags. "Kids need to know where they come from. What are you going to say when he starts asking where he came from? Tell him the stork brought him like all the other children?"

Maybe that _had_ been his plan. Certainly, although Kai-stern's words lingered in his mind long after he had left for Chantel, he made no move to tell Rath the true story of his origins. Maybe he could just wait until Rath brought the question up himself; after all, there was no point in worrying himself senseless over something that might not even happen for years yet. It was better to let sleeping dogs lie; Rath was still young, so young, there was plenty of time to think about those kinds of things later, he wanted Rath (yes, and himself) to enjoy his childhood while he still had it for such a brief, perfect, fleeting time.

So he didn't tell him. Rath grew. He smiled and played and was so much like any other child his heart ached to watch him. Kai-stern watched as well, and if his mouth tightened sometimes, it seemed that somehow he hadn't been able to tell him either.

After Kai-stern brought him down from the mountain, he still smiled and laughed, but there was something different in the timbre of his voice, the curve of his mouth no longer quite so jaunty, and he was forced to admit that he could put off explaining himself no longer; he had already damaged Rath's trust in him because of his own blindness, his unwillingness to tell him the truth, his _selfishness_. Kai-stern had been right. He should have told him earlier.

"Rath," he said quietly when he saw him in the corridor at night, "wait."

Rath stood perfectly still, lip curled into a snarl, and turned away.

"I hate you," he said, cold and dead, and walked away, and Lykouleon felt something inside him die as well.


End file.
